Much before algorithms took over social media, social networking meant real people connecting with each other through digital platforms. Orkut was a defining platform in the early years of social networking. More than a decade after its shutdown, Orkut could be making a comeback. The platform was created by former Google employee Orkut Buyukkokten in 2004.
Twelve years later, when Instagram and TikTok are ruling the roost, a mushrooming subculture of going ‘analogue’ is making its way; the creator of Orkut has a unique message for the world. “I want Orkut to create a new social network focused on authentic people, real connection, and genuine belonging” are the words that greet users who visit orkut.com.
Today, the official website of Orkut is running a campaign to bring together users who long for real connections on social networks. The site asks users to sign a petition if they want Orkut to create a new social network focused on authentic experiences. So far, the page has got over 260,000 signatures from users across 115 countries.
Rallying against AI-generated content
Another major highlight of the website is a letter by Orkut’s founder, who has called for rebuilding the internet around real human connections, warning that social media has betrayed its original purpose and AI is accelerating the problem. Buyukkokten said the internet is now increasingly focused on engagement, advertising and attention rather than meaningful relationships. He urged users to join a movement to make the internet more human by signing up at orkut.com.
“Over two decades ago, I created some of the earliest social networks. I have watched with you as social media has gone wrong,” he wrote. Recalling the early days of the internet, Buyukkokten said connecting with strangers across continents once felt exciting because interactions were authentic. However, he argued that years of optimising platforms for user engagement had changed that experience.
“Feeds built around engagement, not connection. A generation of kids surrendered to algorithms that addicted them, divided them, and sold them to advertisers,” he said, adding that it was no surprise that many had grown up feeling lonely and anxious. Buyukkokten also cautioned that AI was challenging the fundamental premise of social networking, which is the presence of another human being on the other side of a conversation.
How AI is changing social media
He pointed to AI-generated content, deepfakes, bots and autonomous AI agents as examples of how the technology was changing social media. He argued that while AI could produce content, it could not replace the human emotions and relationships that give life meaning. “You know what AI can’t create? Joy. Hope. Gratitude. Wonder. Amusement. Inspiration. Love,” he wrote.
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Reflecting on what users missed most about Orkut, Buyukkokten underscored the platform’s communities, where people connected over shared interests and everyday experiences. “In a feed you’re an audience, in a community you’re a member. That was the whole point,” he said.
He called for a future internet that prioritises kindness, curiosity, friendship, trust and belonging instead of algorithms and metrics such as time spent on a platform. To support the initiative, Buyukkokten asked users to visit orkut.com, add their names to the movement and share a supporter card with someone they want to join them.
“Let’s stop optimising for attention and start optimising for each other,” he said, concluding his letter with a call to rebuild the internet through authentic relationships and collective action.
Orkut’s popularity in India
The platform became massively popular in India in the mid-2000s. This was a time when internet access was expanding, and social networking was a relatively new experience for the country’s youth. It was not only the young who were active on Orkut; people of all ages and walks of life used the platform to reconnect with long-lost friends. They were not simply sharing posts and photographs from their lives; they were nurturing friendships beyond geography and time.
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Orkut brought an easy way to connect with other like-minded folks, reconnect with school and college mates, and meet people in the real world. It had communities built around everything from sports to Bollywood to cricket and other everyday experiences. Most importantly, it endowed the users with a sense of belonging. Its features, like testimonials, made friends write appreciative notes for each other and for the world to see. Other features like scraps and personalised profiles made online conversations light, fun, and personal. Much before Facebook, Orkut was a digital meeting place for young Indians who were also discovering the possibilities of the internet.
Orkut – the origin story
Orkut, one of the earliest social networks, was founded on January 24, 2004, by Buyukkoten. It was a platform that was designed to help users meet new and old friends and maintain existing ones. Back in 2008, it was the most popular website in Brazil and India, and reportedly it was fully managed and operated by Google Brazil. The platform quickly gained popularity owing to its simplicity.
In India, Orkut became a household name around 2006, as it was seen as a major destination for online communities and social networking. Along with phenomenal growth, concerns were also raised about increasing fake profiles and dissemination of objectionable content. Around 2007, considering the soaring popularity of the platform in India, Orkut brought a redesigned interface with support for languages like Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, and Bengali.
In 2007, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was witnessing unprecedented global expansion, rapidly overtaking established social networking platforms to become the dominant player. Orkut, which had a substantial user base, shifted its operational base to Brazil, its largest market. Amid intense competition from Facebook and other platforms, Orkut introduced a major redesign in 2009, featuring a new interface, easier navigation, greater customisation and video-chat features through Google Talk. However, in 2011, Facebook overtook Orkut in Brazil, marking the loss of its biggest market. This is widely seen as a turning point in Orkut’s decline.
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On June 30, 2014, Google announced that Orkut would shut down. Eventually, new account registrations stopped, and the platform shut down on September 30. A major reason for the shutdown, according to Google, was the growth of its other services, namely YouTube, Google+, Blogger, etc. However, years later, in 2022, the website was reactivated with the letter from the founder hinting at a new project, triggering speculation about a possible comeback. And in 2026, the Buyukkokten is calling for a new social network that brings back real people and genuine connections.
